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COURT (FOR NOW) SAYS NY TIMES CAN PUBLISH PROJECT VERITAS DOCUMENTS

Free Speech


FROM THE PRIOR-RESTRAINT? DEPT

Thu, Feb 10th 2022 1:31pm — Mike Masnick

We've talked about the hypocrite grifters who run Project Veritas, who, even
when they have legitimate concerns about attacks on their own free speech, ran
to court to try to silence the NY Times. Bizarrely, a NY judge granted Project
Veritas' demand for prior restraint against the NY Times falsely claiming that
attorney-client material could not be published.

The NY Times appealed that ruling and now a court has... not overturned the
original ruling, but for now said that the NY Times can publish the documents,
saying that it will not enforce the original ruling until an appeal can be
heard. This is... better than nothing, but fully overturning the original
ridiculous ruling would have been much better. Because it was clearly prior
restraint. But, at least for now, the prior restraint will not be enforced.

Still, the response from Project Veritas deserves separate comment, because it's
just naively stupid:

> In a phone interview on Thursday, Mr. O’Keefe said: “Defamation is not a First
> Amendment-protected right; publishing the other litigants’ attorney-client
> privileged documents is not a protected First Amendment right.”

While it's accurate that defamation is not protected by the 1st Amendment, he's
wrong that publishing attorney-client communications is -- in most cases -- very
much protected. He's fuzzing the lines here, by basically arguing that because
Project Veritas is, separately, suing the NY Times, that bans the NY Times from
publishing any attorney-client privileged material it obtains via standard
reporting tactics.

But that fuzzing suggests something that just isn't true: that there's some
exception to the 1st Amendment from publishing attorney-client materials. That's
wrong. The attorney-client privilege is with respect to having to disclose
certain documents to another party in litigation. If you can successfully show
that the documents are privileged, they don't need to be disclosed to the other
party. That's the extent of the privilege. It has no bearing whatsoever on
whether or not someone else obtaining those materials through other means has a
right to publish them. Of course they do and the 1st Amendment protects that.

And, I should just note, that considering Project Veritas' main method of
operating is trying to obtain private documents, or record secret conversations,
it is bizarre beyond belief that Project Veritas is literally claiming that
private material has some sort of 1st Amendment protection. Because that seems
incredibly likely to come back and bite Project Veritas at a later time. Of
course, considering they're hypocritical grifters with no fundamental principles
beyond "attack people with views we don't like," I guess it's not surprising
that their viewpoint on free speech and the 1st Amendment shifts depending on
who it's protecting.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, attorney-client privilege, james o'keefe, new york,
prior restraint
Companies: ny times, project veritas


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YET ANOTHER ISRAELI MALWARE MANUFACTURER FOUND SELLING TO HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSERS,
TARGETING IPHONES

(Mis)Uses of Technology


FROM THE QUITE-THE-HOMEBREW-INDUSTRY-YOU'VE-GOT-GOING-THERE,-ISRAEL DEPT

Thu, Feb 10th 2022 12:00pm — Tim Cushing

Exploit developer NSO Group may be swallowing up the negative limelight these
days, but let's not forget the company has plenty of competitors. The US
government's blacklisting of NSO arrived with a concurrent blacklisting of
malware purveyor, Candiru -- another Israeli firm with a long list of
questionable customers, including Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab
Emirates, and Singapore.

Now there's another name to add to the list of NSO-alikes. And (perhaps not
oddly enough) this company also calls Israel home. Reuters was the first to
report on this NSO's competitor's ability to stay competitive in the
international malware race.

> A flaw in Apple's software exploited by Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group to
> break into iPhones in 2021 was simultaneously abused by a competing company,
> according to five people familiar with the matter.
> 
> QuaDream, the sources said, is a smaller and lower profile Israeli firm that
> also develops smartphone hacking tools intended for government clients.

Like NSO, QuaDream sold a "zero-click" exploit that could completely compromise
a target's phones. We're using the past tense not because QuaDream no longer
exists, but because this particular exploit (the basis for NSO's FORCEDENTRY)
has been patched into uselessness by Apple.

But, like other NSO competitors (looking at you, Candiru), QuaDream has no
interest in providing statements, a friendly public face for inquiries from
journalists, or even a public-facing website. Its Tel Aviv office seemingly has
no occupants and email inquiries made by Reuters have gone ignored.

QuaDream doesn't have much of a web presence. But that's changing, due to this
report, which builds on earlier reporting on the company by Haaretz and Middle
East Eye. But even the earlier reporting doesn't go back all that far: June
2021. That report shows the company selling a hacking tool called "Reign" to the
Saudi government. But that sale wasn't accomplished directly, apparently in a
move designed to further distance QuaDream from both the product being sold and
the government it sold it to.

> According to Haaretz, Reign is being sold by InReach Technologies, Quadream's
> sister company based in Cyprus, while Quadream runs its research and
> development operations from an office in the Ramat Gan district in Tel Aviv.
> 
> [...]
> 
> InReach Technologies, its sales front in Cyprus, according to Haaretz, may be
> being used in order to fly under the radar of Israel’s defence export
> regulator.

Reign is apparently the equivalent of NSO's Pegasus, another powerful zero-click
exploit that appears to still be able to hack most iPhone models. But it's not a
true equivalent. According to this report, the tool can be rendered useless by a
single system software update and, perhaps more importantly, cannot be remotely
terminated by the entity deploying it, should the infection be discovered by the
target. This means targeted users have the opportunity to learn a great deal
about the exploit, its deployment, and possibly where it originated.

That being said, it's not cheap:

> One QuaDream system, which would have given customers the ability to launch 50
> smartphone break-ins per year, was being offered for $2.2 million exclusive of
> maintenance costs, according to the 2019 brochure. Two people familiar with
> the software's sales said the price for REIGN was typically higher.

With more firms in the mix -- and more scrutiny from entities like Citizen Lab
-- it's only a matter of time before information linking NSO competitors to
human rights abuses and indiscriminate targeting of political enemies threatens
to make QuaDream and Candiru household names. And, once again, it's time to
point out this all could have been avoided by refusing to sell powerful hacking
tools to human rights abusers who were obviously going to use the spyware to
target critics, dissidents, journalists, ex-wives, etc. That QuaDream chose to
sell to countries like Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Mexico pretty much
guarantees reports of abusive deployment will surface in the future.

Filed Under: exploits, israel, malware, surveillance, zero days
Companies: nso group, quadream


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SURPRISE: U.S. COST OF RIPPING OUT AND REPLACING HUAWEI GEAR JUMPS FROM $1.8 TO
$5.6 BILLION

(Mis)Uses of Technology


FROM THE PATRIOTIC-GRIFT DEPT

Thu, Feb 10th 2022 10:45am — Karl Bode

So we've noted that a lot of the U.S. politician accusations that Huawei uses
its network hardware to spy on Americans on behalf of the Chinese government are
lacking in the evidence department. The company's been on the receiving end of a
sustained U.S. government ban based on accusations that have never actually been
proven publicly, levied by a country (the United States) with a long, long
history of doing exactly what it accuses Huawei of doing.

To be clear, Huawei is a terrible company. It has been happy to provide IT and
telecom support to the Chinese government as it wages genocide against ethnic
minorities. It has also been caught helping some African governments spy on the
press and political opponents. And it may very well have helped the Chinese
government spy on Americans. So it's hard to feel too bad about the company.

At the same time, if you're going to levy accusations (like "Huawei clearly
spies on Americans") you need to provide public evidence. And we haven't.
Eighteen months of investigations found nothing. That didn't really matter much
to the FCC (under Trump and Biden) or Congress, which ordered that U.S. ISPs and
network operators rip out all Huawei gear and replace it to an estimated cost of
$1.8 billion. Yet just a few years later, the actual cost to replace this gear
has already ballooned to $5.8 billion and is likely to get higher:

> "The FCC has told Congress that applications to The Secure and Trusted
> Communications Networks Reimbursement Program have generated requests totaling
> about $5.6 billion – far more than the allocated funding. The program was
> established to reimburse providers with 10 million or fewer customers who must
> remove Huawei Technologies Company and ZTE equipment."

That's quite a windfall for companies not named Huawei, don't you think?

My problem with these efforts has always been a nuanced one. I have no interest
in defending a shitty global telecom gear maker with an atrocious human rights
record which very well may be a proven to be a surveillance lackey for the
Chinese government. Yet at the same time, domestic companies like Cisco have,
for much of the last decade, leaned on unsubstantiated allegations of spying to
shift market share in their favors. DC is flooded with lobbyists who can easily
exploit both xenophobia and intelligence worries to their tactical advantage,
then bury the need for evidence under ambiguous claims of national security:

> "What happens is you get competitors who are able to gin up lawmakers who are
> already wound up about China,” said one Hill staffer who was not authorized to
> speak publicly about the matter. “What they do is pull the string and see
> where the top spins.”
> 
> But some experts say these concerns are exaggerated. These experts note that
> much of Cisco’s own technology is manufactured in China."

So my problem here isn't necessarily that Huawei doesn't deserve what's
happening to it. My problem here is generally a lack of transparency in a
process that's heavily dictated by lobbyists, who can hide any need for evidence
behind national security claims. This creates an environment where decisions are
made on a "noble and patriotic basis" that wind up being beyond common sense,
reproach, and oversight. That's a nice breeding ground for fraud.

My other problem is the hypocrisy of a country that doesn't believe in
limitations on spying, complaining endlessly about spying, without modifying any
of its own, very similar behaviors. AT&T has been proven to be directly tethered
to the NSA to the point where it's literally impossible to determine where one
ends and the other begins. Yet were another country to ban AT&T from doing
business there, the heads of the very same folks breathlessly concerned about
surveillance ethics would explode. What makes us beyond reproach here? Our
ethical track record?

And my third problem is that the almost myopic, focus on Huawei has been so
massive, we've failed to take on numerous other privacy and security issues,
whether that's the lack of a meaningful federal privacy law, the rampant
security and privacy issues inherent in the Internet of things space (where
Chinese-made hardware is rampant), or election security with anywhere close to
the same level of urgency. These all are equally important issues, all exploited
by Chinese intelligence, that see a small fraction of the hand-wringing and
action reserved for issues like Huawei.

Again, none of this is to defend Huawei or deny it's a shitty company with
dubious ethics. But the lack of transparency or skepticism creates an
environment ripe for fraud and myopia by policymakers who act as if the entirety
of their efforts is driven by the noblest and most patriotic of intentions. And,
were I a betting man, I'd wager this whole rip and replace effort makes
headlines for all the wrong reasons several years down the road.

Filed Under: china, fcc, infrastructure, networking equipment, surveillance
Companies: huawei


6 Comments
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DAILY DEAL: THE COMPLETE GAMEGURU UNLIMITED BUNDLE

Deals


FROM THE GOOD-DEALS-ON-COOL-STUFF DEPT

Thu, Feb 10th 2022 10:40am — Daily Deal

GameGuru is a non-technical and fun game maker that offers an easy, enjoyable
and comprehensive game creation process that is designed specifically for those
who are not programmers or designers/artists. It allows you to build your own
game world with easy to use tools. Populate your game by placing down
characters, weapons, and other game items, then press one button to build your
game, and it's ready to play and share. GameGuru is built using DirectX 11 and
supports full PBR rendering, meaning your games can look great and take full
advantage of the latest graphics technology. The bundle includes hundreds of
royalty-free 3D assets. It's on sale for $50.



Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A
portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products
featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal


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SENATOR BLUMENTHAL, AFTER YEARS OF DENIAL, ADMITS HE'S TARGETING ENCRYPTION WITH
EARN IT

Say That Again


FROM THE HE-JUST-CAME-OUT-AND-SAID-IT DEPT

Thu, Feb 10th 2022 9:36am — Mike Masnick

Senator Richard Blumenthal has now admitted that EARN IT is targeting
encryption, something he denied for two years, and then just out and said it.

Since the very beginning many of us have pointed out that the EARN IT Act will
undermine encryption (as well as other parts of the internet). Senator Richard
Blumenthal, the lead sponsor on the bill, has insisted over and over again that
the bill has nothing to do with encryption. Right after the original bill came
out, when people called this out, Blumenthal flat out said "this bill says
nothing about encryption" and later claimed that "Big Tech is using encryption
as a subterfuge to oppose this bill."

That's been his line ever since -- insisting the bill has nothing to do with
encryption. And to "show" that it wasn't about encryption, back in 2020, he
agreed to a very weak amendment from Senator Leahy that had some language about
encryption, even though as we pointed out at the time, that amendment still
created a problem for encryption.

The newest version of EARN IT replaced Leahy's already weak amendment with one
that is a more direct attack on encryption. But it has allowed slimy "anti-porn"
groups like NCOSE to falsely claim that it has "dealt with the concerns about
encryption." Except, as we detailed, the language of the bill now makes
encryption a liability for any web service, as it explicitly says that use of
encryption can be used as evidence that a website does not properly deal with
child sexual abuse material.

But still, through it all, Blumenthal kept lying through his teeth, insisting
that the bill wasn't targeting encryption. Until yesterday when he finally
admitted it straight up to Washington Post reporter Cat Zakrzewski. In her
larger story about EARN IT, I'm not sure why Zakrewski buried this point all the
way down near the bottom, because this is the story. Blumenthal is asked about
the encryption bit and he admits that the bill is targeting encryption:

> Blumenthal said in an interview that lawmakers incorporated these concerns
> into revisions, which prevent the implementation of encryption from being the
> sole evidence of a company’s liability for child porn. But he said lawmakers
> wouldn’t offer a blanket exemption to using encryption as evidence arguing
> companies might use it as a “get-out-of-jail-free card.”

In other words, he knows that the bill targets encryption despite two whole
years of blatant denials. To go from "this bill makes no mention of encryption"
to "we don't want companies using encryption as a 'get-out-of-jail-free card'"
is an admission that this bill is absolutely about encryption. And if that's the
case, why have their been no hearings about the impact this would have on
encryption and national security? Because, that seems like a key point that
should be discussed, especially with Blumenthal admitting this thing that he
denied for two whole years.

During today's markup, Blumenthal also made some nonsense comments about
encryption:

> The treatment of encryption in this statute is the result of hours, days, of
> consultation involving the very wise and significant counsel from Sen. Leahy
> who offered the original encryption amendment and said at the time that his
> amendment would not protect tech companies for being held liable for doing
> anything that would give rise to liability today for using encryption to
> further illegal activity. That's the key distinction here. Doesn't prohibit
> the use of encryption, doesn't create liability for using encryption, but the
> misuse of encryption to further illegal activity is what gives rise to
> liability here.

This is, beyond being nonsense word salad, just utterly ridiculous. No one ever
said the bill "prohibited" encryption, but that it would make it a massive
liability. And he's absolutely wrong that it "doesn't create liability for using
encryption" because it literally does exactly that in saying that encryption can
be used as evidence of liability.

The claim that it's only the "misuse of encryption" shows that Senator
Blumenthal (1) has no clue what he's talking about and (2) needs to hire
staffers who actually do understand this stuff, because that's not how this
works. Once you say it's the "misuse of encryption" you've sunk encryption.
Because now every lawsuit will just claim that any use of encryption is misuse
and the end result is that you need to go through a massive litigation process
to determine if your use of encryption is okay or not.

That's the whole reason why things like Section 230 are important, because they
avoid having every company have to spend over a million dollars to prove that
the technical decision they made were okay and not a "misuse." But now if they
have to spent a million dollars every time someone sues them for their use of
encryption, then it makes it ridiculously costly -- and risky -- to use
encryption.

So, Blumenthal is either too stupid to understand how all of this actually
works, or as he seems to have admitted to the reporter despite two years of
denial, he doesn't believe companies should be allowed to use encryption.

EARN IT is an attack on encryption, full stop. Senator Blumenthal has finally
admitted that, and anyone who believes in basic privacy and security should take
notice.

Oh, and as a side note, remember back in 2020 when Blumenthal flipped out at
Zoom for not offering full end-to-end encryption? Under this bill, Zoom would be
at risk either way. Blumenthal is threatening them if they use encryption and if
they don't. It's almost as if Richard Blumenthal doesn't know what he's talking
about regarding encryption.

Filed Under: earn it, encryption, liability, richard blumenthal


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YES, IT REALLY WAS NINTENDO THAT SLAMMED GILVASUNNER YOUTUBE CHANNEL WITH
COPYRIGHT STRIKES

Copyright


FROM THE OBVIOUSLY DEPT

Thu, Feb 10th 2022 9:33am — Timothy Geigner

Well, for a story that was already over, this became somewhat fascinating. We
have followed the Nintendo vs. GilvaSunner war for several years now. The
GilvaSunner YouTube channel has long been dedicated to uploading and
appreciating a variety of video game music, largely from Nintendo games. Roughly
once a year for the past few years, Nintendo would lob copyright strikes at a
swath of GilvaSunner "videos": 100 videos in 2019, a bit less than that in 2020,
take 2021 off, then suddenly slam the channel with 1,300 strikes in 2022. With
that last copyright MOAB, the GilvaSunner channel has been shuttered
voluntarily, with the operator indicating that it's all too much hassle.

Well, on the internet, and in our comments on that last post, there began to be
speculation as to whether or not it was actually Nintendo behind all of these
copyright strikes... or an imposter. Those sleuthing around found little
tidbits, such as the name used on the strike not matching up to the names
displayed in the past when Nintendo has acted against YouTube videos.

It was... strange. Why? Well, because it looked like many people going out and
trying to find a reason to believe that Nintendo wasn't behaving exactly as
anyone who had witnessed Nintendo's behavior would expect. If this was someone
impersonating Nintendo with these actions, it was utterly indistinguishable from
how Nintendo would normally behave. Guys, they do this shit all the time.

And this time too, as it turns out. You can hear it straight from YouTube's
mouth.



This is where I will stipulate for the zillionth time that Nintendo is within
it's rights to take these actions. But we should also stipulate that the company
doesn't have to go this route and the fact that it prioritizes control of its IP
in the strictest fashion over letting its fans enjoy some video game music
should tell you everything you need to know.

In the meantime, to the internet sleuths: I appreciate your dedication to either
Nintendo or to simply digging into these kinds of details for funsies or
whatever. That being said, as the old saying goes, if you hear the sound of
hooves, assume it's a horse and not a zebra.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright strikes, dmca, gilvasunner, takedowns
Companies: nintendo


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EVEN OFFICIALS IN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY ARE RECOGNIZING THE DANGERS OF
OVER-CLASSIFICATION

Legal Issues


FROM THE
APPARENTLY-WE-CAN'T-TRUST-THE-PEOPLE-THAT-HAVE-GRANTED-THE-GOVERNMENT-THIS-P
DEPT

Thu, Feb 10th 2022 6:33am — Tim Cushing

The federal government has a problem with secrecy. Well, actually it doesn't
have a problem with secrecy, per se. That's often considered a feature, not a
bug. But federal law says the government shouldn't have so much secrecy, what
with the FOIA being in operation. And yet, the government feels compelled to
keep secrets from its biggest employer: the US taxpayers.

Over-classification remains a problem. It has been a problem ever since long
before a government contractor went rogue with a massive stash of NSA documents,
showing that many of the government's secrets should have been shared or, at the
very least, more widely discussed as the government turned 9/11 into a
constitutional bypass on the information superhighway.

Since then, efforts have been made to dial back the government's proclivity for
classifying documents that pose no threat to government operations and/or
government security. In fact, the argument has been made (rather convincingly)
that over-classification is counterproductive. It's more likely to result in the
exposure of so-called secrets rather than secure the blanket-exemption-formality
that keeps secrets from the general public.

Efforts have been made to counteract this overwhelming desire to keep the public
locked out of discussions about government activities. These efforts have mostly
failed. And that has mainly been due to vague and frequent invocations of
national security concerns, which allow legislators and federal judges to shut
off their brains and hammer the [REDACT] button repeatedly.

But ignoring the problem hasn't made the problem go away, no matter how many
billions the federal government refuses to throw at the problem.
Over-classification still stands between the public and information it should
have access to. And it stands between federal agencies and efficient use of tax
dollars. The federal government generates petabytes of data every month. And far
too often, the agencies generating the data decide it's no one's business but
their own.

It's not just legislators noting the widening gap between the government's
massive stockpiles of data and the public's ability to access them. It's also
those generating the most massive stashes of bits and bytes, as the Washington
Post points out, using the words of an Intelligence Community official.

> The U.S. government is drowning in its own secrets. Avril Haines, the director
> of national intelligence, recently wrote to Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Jerry
> Moran (R-Kan.) that “deficiencies in the current classification system
> undermine our national security, as well as critical democratic objectives, by
> impeding our ability to share information in a timely manner.” The same
> conclusions have been drawn by the senators and many others for a long time.

As this letter hints at, over-classification doesn't just affect the great
unwashed whose power is generally considered to be far too limited to change
things. It also affects agencies and the entities that oversee the agencies --
the latter of which are asked to engage in oversight while being locked out of
the information they need to perform this task.

If there's any good news here, it's that the Intelligence Community recognizes
it's part of the problem. But this is just one person in the IC. It's unlikely
every official feels this way.

The government is working towards a solution, but its work is being performed at
the speed of government -- something further hampered by the back-and-forth of
periodic regime changes and their alternating ideas about how much transparency
the government owes to its patrons.

The IC letter writer almost sees a silver lining in the nearly opaque cloud
enveloping agencies involved in national security efforts.

> So far, Ms. Haines said, current priorities and resources for fixing the
> classification systems “are simply not sufficient.” The National Security
> Council is working on a revised presidential executive order governing
> classified information, and we hope the White House will come up with an
> ambitious blueprint for modernization.

The silver lining is "so far," and the efforts being made elsewhere to change
things. The rest of the non-lining is far less silver: the resources aren't
sufficient and the National Security Council is grinding bureaucratic gears by
working with the administration to change things. If it doesn't happen soon,
changes will be at the discretion of the next administration. And the next
administration may no longer feel streamlining declassification is a priority,
putting projects that have been in the on-again, off-again works since Snowden's
exposes on the back burner yet again.

Our government will never likely feel Americans can be trusted with information
about the programs their tax dollars pay for. But perhaps a little more momentum
-- this time propelled by something within the Intelligence Community -- will
prompt some incremental changes that may eventually snowball into actual
transparency and accountability.

Filed Under: avril haines, classification, foia, jerry moran, over
classification, ron wyden, secrecy, transparency


8 Comments
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FIRST CIRCUIT TEARS INTO BOSTON PD'S BULLSHIT GANG DATABASE WHILE OVERTURNING A
DEPORTATION DECISION

Legal Issues


FROM THE NOW-FIND-SOME-WAY-TO-KILL-IT-DEAD DEPT

Wed, Feb 9th 2022 9:02pm — Tim Cushing

A federal court has delivered a rebuke of police gang databases in, of all
things, a review of a deportation hearing.

As we've been made painfully aware, gang databases are just extensions of biased
policing efforts. People are placed in gang databases for numerous, incredibly
stupid reasons. People are designated gang members simply for living, working,
and going to school in areas where gang activity is prevalent. Infants have been
added to gang databases because cops can't be bothered to perform any due
diligence. There's no way for people to know they've been designated as
gang-affiliated and, worse, there's often no way to challenge this designation
and get yourself removed from these lists, which tend to result in additional
harassment by police officers or "gang enhancements" that lengthen sentences for
anyone listed in these dubious databases.

In 2015, Homeland Security Investigations officers performed a sweep in Boston,
Massachusetts, rounding up suspected MS-13 gang members for deportation. This
sweep snared Cristian Diaz Ortiz, who was 16, had entered the country illegally,
and was now living with his uncle.

Oritz applied for asylum, citing the fear of being subjected to MS-13 gang
violence if he was sent back to his home country, El Salvador. From the First
Circuit Appeals Court decision [PDF]:

> On October 1, 2018, Diaz Ortiz filed an application for asylum, withholding of
> removal, and CAT protection, basing his request on multiple grounds, including
> persecution because of his evangelical Christian religion. He also reported
> that an aunt had been murdered in 2011 by members of MS-13, and he feared that
> the gang would kill him as well if he returned to El Salvador. In a
> subsequently filed affidavit, Diaz Ortiz stated that, while he was living in
> El Salvador, MS-13 had threatened his life "on multiple occasions" because he
> was a practicing evangelical Christian. He said he repeatedly refused the
> gang's demands that he join MS-13, but gang members continued to follow him
> and issue threats. In 2015, the gang physically attacked him and warned "that
> they would kill [him] and [his] family if [he] did not stop saying [he] was a
> Christian and living and preaching against the gang way of life."

The Immigration Judge sided with the Department of Homeland Security. It largely
made this decision due to the introduction of a "Gang Assessment Database" that
said Ortiz was not a practicing Christian who might fear retaliation if removed
from the country, but rather an MS-13 infiltrator. The "gang package" (as the
court refers to it) was compiled by the Boston PD. It stated the following:

> Cristian Josue DIAZ ORTIZ has been verified as an MS-13 gang member by the
> Boston Police Department (BPD)/Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC).
> 
> Cristian Josue DIAZ ORTIZ has documented associations with MS-13 gang members
> by the Boston Police Department and Boston School Police Department (BSPD).
> (See the attached BPD & BSPD incident/field interview reports and gang
> intelligence bulletins.)
> 
> Cristian Josue DIAZ ORTIZ has been documented carrying common MS-13 gang
> related weapons by the Boston Police Department. (See the attached BPD
> incident/field interview reports.) [A footnote states that the only "weapon"
> ever documented by the BPD was a bike chain and a padlock carried in Ortiz's
> backpack.]
> 
> Cristian Josue DIAZ ORTIZ has been documented frequenting areas notorious for
> MS13 gang activity by the Boston Police Department. These areas are 104
> Bennington St. and the East Boston Airport Park/Stadium in East Boston,
> Massachusetts which are both known for MS-13 gang activity including recent
> firearms arrests and a homicide.

According to the Boston PD, Oritz racked up "points" by associating with gang
members and being in areas MS-13 members frequented. If enough points are
accrued, a person gets placed in the gang database. But the underlying events
had nothing to do with gang activity, despite what the summary provided by the
DHS said.

The BPD documented nine "interactions" with Ortiz in which it assigned "gang"
points to him. Three of those instances involved Ortiz smoking marijuana (a
civil infraction in Massachusetts) with students and others the BPD claimed were
"known MS-13 members." Four others involved Ortiz "loitering" in a place near
"known gang member" or being approached and talked to by "known gang members."
And one of the interactions was the time the BPD "discovered" Oritz carrying a
bike lock and chain in his backpack -- something not all that uncommon for bike
owners (which Ortiz was).

This "gang package" was critiqued by a law enforcement expert who testified that
Ortiz should never have been included in the gang database. The former Boston
police officer pointed out Ortiz had never been suspected of criminal activity
and was apparently being penalized solely for spending time with people of his
same ethnicity. The gang package's claim that Ortiz had a "history" of carrying
weapons was clearly undercut by the BPD's documentation of a single incident
where an officer recovered something that could be used as a weapon (the bike
chain), but was not inherently a tool of unlawful violence.

The immigration judge ignored all of this, finding only the DHS and BPD
credible. So did the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). Fortunately for Ortiz,
the First Circuit isn't as easily impressed by the Boston PD's police work. It
has some very harsh words for the two lower levels that blew off their
obligations to the asylum seeker.

> If the IJ and BIA had performed even a cursory assessment of reliability, they
> would have discovered a lack of evidence to substantiate the gang package's
> classification of Diaz Ortiz as a member of MS-13. Most significantly, the
> record contains no explanation of the basis for the point system employed by
> the BPD. The record is silent on how the Department determined what point
> values should attach to what conduct, or what point threshold is reasonable to
> reliably establish gang membership.

As the appeals court points out, these databases are inherently unreliable
because literally anything can be used to imply someone is a gang member. The
lower courts were wrong to completely dismiss Ortiz's challenge of the BPD's
assessment.

> That silence is so consequential because, during the period relevant to this
> case, the list of "items or activities" that could lead to "verification for
> entry into the Gang Assessment Database" was shockingly wide-ranging. It
> included "Prior Validation by a Law Enforcement Agency" (nine points),
> "Documented Association (BPD Incident Report)" (four points), and the
> open-ended "Information Not Covered by Other Selection Criteria" (one point).
> The 2017 form for submitting FIO [Field Interview Operations] reports to the
> database states that a "Documented Association" includes virtually any
> interaction with someone identified as a gang member: "[w]alking, eating,
> recreating, communicating, or otherwise associating with confirmed gang
> members or associates."

The points are easy to acquire, but there's no consistency in how the Boston PD
assigns them, lending more credibility to the assumption that gang databases
mainly exist to confirm cops' biases.

> Moreover, the point system was applied to Diaz Ortiz in a haphazard manner. He
> was assigned points for most, but not all, of his documented interactions with
> purported MS-13 members. When he was assigned points, he was not always
> assigned the same number per interaction. Although he was assigned two points
> for "contact" with alleged gang members or associates on most occasions, he
> was assigned five points for the "Intelligence Report" submitted by the Boston
> School Police that describes an encounter that appears no different from the
> other "contacts." Only two items in the Rule 335 list carry five points:
> "Information from Reliable, Confidential Informant" and "Information Developed
> During Investigation and/or Surveillance." We thus cannot accept the BIA's
> implicit conclusion that the gang package's points-driven identification of
> Diaz-Ortiz as a "VERIFIED and ACTIVE" member of MS-13 was reliable.

Case in point:

> The entry for November 28, 2017 -- the report from a Boston school officer --
> illustrates several of these issues. The gist of the entry is that two
> officers made "casual conversation" with a student in a "full face mask" whom
> they identified as a member of MS-13, and they then saw the student walk over
> to a group of teenage boys that included Diaz Ortiz. The report identifies no
> improper conduct by any of the students; it does not say that the mask bore
> gang colors or symbols;23 it does not indicate that the masked student spoke
> directly to Diaz Ortiz. Nor does the report explain the basis for identifying
> the student as an MS-13 member other than to say that the BRIC labeled the
> student as a "verified" member. Therefore, we at most can infer from this
> paltry set of facts that Diaz Ortiz was standing near an individual who was
> identified as an MS-13 member by the BRIC, with the only basis for that
> identification the possible use of the same problematic point system that
> identified Diaz Ortiz as a member. Yet, Diaz Ortiz received five points merely
> because that student decided to walk over and join a group that included him.

Yes, the BPD decided Ortiz was affiliated with a notorious El Salvadoran gang
internationally known for violently [checks gang package] smoking the reefer and
conversing in public.

The whole opinion is worth reading. It ruthlessly picks apart the BPD's gang
database, reaching conclusions that apply to every gang database run by any law
enforcement agency in America. This vacates the lower courts' decisions, which
means Ortiz can again plead his case before the BIA. And this time he'll get a
new judge because the First Circuit feels that sending it back to the original
immigration judge would just allow that judge to re-engage with their
pre-existing biases.

Gang databases are garbage. Even the most cursory examination of the underlying
factors common to almost every gang database makes that clear. But the
immigration court couldn't be bothered to do this, which almost resulted in
someone being sent back to El Salvador where interactions with actual gang
members might have resulted in his death, rather than just being an unwilling
participant in Boston's "Whose Gang Is It Anyway?," where everything's made up
and, unfortunately, the points do matter.

Filed Under: 1st circuit, boston, boston pd, boston police, deportation, gang
database


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CONTENT MODERATION CASE STUDY: RUSSIA SLOWS DOWN ACCESS TO TWITTER AS NEW FORM
OF CENSORSHIP (2021)

Content Moderation


FROM THE THROTTLING-AS-MODERATION DEPT

Wed, Feb 9th 2022 3:46pm — Copia Institute

Summary:

On March 10 2021, the Russian Government deliberately slowed down access to
Twitter after it accused the platform of repeatedly failing to remove posts
about illegal drug use, child pornography, and pushing minors towards suicide. 

State communications watchdog Roskomnadzor (RKN) claimed that “throttling” the
speed of uploading and downloading images and videos on Twitter was to protect
its citizens by making its content less accessible. Using Deep Packet Inspection
(DPI) technology, RKN essentially filtered internet traffic for Twitter-related
domains. As part of Russia’s controversial 2019 Sovereign Internet Law, all
Russian Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were required to install this
technology, which allows internet traffic to be filtered, rerouted, and blocked
with granular rules through a centralized system. In this example, it blocked or
slowed down access to specific content (images and videos) rather than the
entire service. DPI technology also gives Russian authorities unilateral and
automatic access to ISPs’ information systems and access to keys to decrypt user
communications. 

Twitter throttling in Russia meme. Translation: “Runet users; Twitter”

The University of Michigan’s researchers reported connection speeds to Twitter
users were reduced on average by 87 percent and some Russian internet service
providers reported a wider slowdown in access. Inadvertently, this throttling
affected all website domains that included the substring t.co (Twitter’s
shortened domain name), including Microsoft.com, Reddit.com, Russian state
operated news site rt.com and several other Russian Government websites,
including RKN’s own.

Although reports suggest that Twitter has a limited user base in Russia,
perhaps as low as 3% of the population (from an overall population of 144
million), it is popular with politicians, journalists and opposition figures.
The ‘throttling’ of access was likely intended as a warning shot to other
platforms and a test of Russia’s technical capabilities. Russian
parliamentarian, Aleksandr Khinshtein, an advocate of the 2019 Sovereign
Internet Law, was quoted as saying that: 

Putting the brakes on Twitter traffic “will force all other social networks and
large foreign internet companies to understand Russia won’t silently watch and
swallow the flagrant ignoring of our laws.” The companies would have to obey
Russian rules on content or “lose the possibility to make money in Russia.” —
Aleksandr Khinshtein

The Russian Government has a history of trying to limit and control citizen’s
access and use of social media. In 2018, it tried and ultimately failed to shut
down Telegram, a popular messaging app. Telegram, founded by the Russian
émigré, Pavel Durov, refused to hand over its encryption keys to RKN, despite a
court order. Telegram was able to thwart the shutdown attempts by shifting the
hosting of its website to Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services through ‘domain
fronting’ – which the Russian Government later banned. The Government eventually
backed down in the face of technical difficulties and strong public opposition.
Many news outlets suggest that these incidents demonstrate that Russia, where
the internet has long been a last bastion of free speech as the government has
shuttered independent news organizations and obstructed political opposition, is
now tipping towards the more tightly controlled Chinese model and replicating
aspects of its famed Great Fire Wall – including creating home-grown
alternatives to Western platforms. They also warn that as Russian tactics become
bolder and its censorship technology more technically sophisticated – they will
be easily co-opted and scaled up by other autocratic governments.

Company considerations:



 * To what extent should companies comply with such types of government
   demands? 
 * Where do companies draw the line between acquiescing to government
   demands/local law that are contrary to its values or could result in human
   rights violations vs expanding into a market or ensuring that its users have
   access?
 * To what extent should companies align their response and/or mitigation
   strategies with that of other (competitor) US companies affected in a similar
   way by local regulation?
 * Should companies try to circumvent the ‘throttling’ or access restrictions
   through technical means such as reconfiguring content delivery networks?
 * Should companies alert its users that their government is
   restricting/throttling access?



Issue considerations:



 * When are government takedown requests too broad and overreaching? Who –
   companies, governments, civil society, a platform’s users – should decide
   when that is the case?
 * How transparent should companies be with its users about why certain content
   is taken down because of government requests and regulation? Would there be
   times when companies should not be too transparent?
 * What can users and advocacy groups do to challenge government restrictions on
   access to a platform?
 * Should – as the United Nations suggest – access to the internet be seen as a
   part of a suite of digital human rights?



Resolution:

The ‘throttling’ of access to Twitter content initially lasted two months.
According to RKN, Twitter removed 91 percent of its takedown requests after RKN
threatened to block Twitter if it didn’t comply. Normal speeds for desktop users
resumed in May after Twitter complied with RKN’s takedown requests but reports
indicate that throttling is continuing for Twitter’s mobile app users until it
complies fully with RKN’s takedown requests.

Originally posted to the Trust and Safety Foundation website.

Filed Under: case studies, content moderation, russia, throttling
Companies: twitter


1 Comment
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EMAILS SHOW THE LAPD CUT TIES WITH THE CITIZEN APP AFTER ITS STARTED A VIGILANTE
MANHUNT TARGETING AN INNOCENT PERSON

(Mis)Uses of Technology


FROM THE WELL-THANK-FUCK-FOR-THAT DEPT

Wed, Feb 9th 2022 1:47pm — Tim Cushing

It didn't take long for Citizen -- the app that once wanted to be a cop -- to
wear out its law enforcement welcome. The crime reporting app has made several
missteps since its inception, beginning with its original branding as
"Vigilante."

Having been booted from app stores for encouraging (unsurprisingly) vigilantism,
the company rebranded as "Citizen," hooking um… citizens up with live feeds of
crime reports from city residents as well as transcriptions of police scanner
output. It also paid citizens to show up uninvited at crime scenes to report on
developing situations.

But it never forgot its vigilante origins. When wildfires swept across Southern
California last year, Citizen's principals decided it was time to put the
"crime" back in "crime reporting app." The problem went all the way to the top,
with Citizen CEO Andrew Frame dropping into Slack conversations and live
streams, imploring employees and app users to "FIND THIS FUCK."

The problem was Citizen had identified the wrong "FUCK." The person the app
claimed was responsible for the wildfire wasn't actually the culprit. Law
enforcement later tracked down a better suspect, one who had actually generated
some evidence implicating them.

After calling an innocent person a "FUCK" and a "devil" in need of finding,
Citizen was forced to walk back its vigilantism and rehabilitate its image.
Unfortunately for Citizen, this act managed to burn bridges with local law
enforcement just as competently as the wildfire it had used to start a vastly
ill-conceived manhunt.

As Joseph Cox reports for Motherboard, this act ignited the last straw that
acted as a bridge between Citizen and one of the nation's largest law
enforcement agencies, the Los Angeles Police Department. Internal communications
obtained by Vice show the LAPD decided to cut ties with the app after the
company decided its internal Slack channel was capable of taking the law into
its own hands.

> On May 21, several days after the misguided manhunt, Sergeant II Hector
> Guzman, a member of the LAPD Public Communications Group, emailed colleagues
> with a link to some of the coverage around the incident.
> 
> “I know the meeting with West LA regarding Citizen was rescheduled (TBD), but
> here’s a recent article you might want to look at in advance of the meeting,
> which again highlights some of the serious concerns with Citizen, and the user
> actions they promote and condone,” Guzman wrote. Motherboard obtained the LAPD
> emails through a public records request.
> 
> Lieutenant Raul Jovel from the LAPD’s Media Relations Division replied “given
> what is going on with this App, we will not be working with them from our
> shop.”
> 
> Guzman then replied “Copy. I concur.”

Whatever lucrative possibilities Citizen might have envisioned after making
early inroads towards law enforcement acceptance were apparently burnt to a
crisp by this misapprehension that nearly led to a calamitous misapprehension.
Rather than entertain Citizen's mastubatorial fantasies about being the thin app
line between good and evil, the LAPD (wisely) chose to kick the upstart to the
curb.

The stiff arm continues to this day. The LAPD cut ties and has continued to
swipe left on Citizen's extremely online advances. The same Sgt. Guzman
referenced in earlier emails has ensured the LAPD operates independently of
Citizen. When Citizen asked the LAPD if it would be ok to eavesdrop on radio
chatter to send out push notifications to users about possible criminal
activity, Guzman made it clear this would probably be a bad idea.

> “It’s come up before. Always turned down for several reasons,” Guzman wrote in
> another email.

And now Citizen goes it alone in Los Angeles. In response to Motherboard's
reporting, Citizen offered up word salad about good intentions and adjusting to
"real world operational experiences." I guess that's good, in a certain sense.
From the statement, it appears Citizen is willing to learn from its mistakes.
The problem is its mistakes have been horrific rather than simply inconvenient,
and it appears to be somewhat slow on the uptake, which only aggravates problems
that may be caused by over-excited execs thinking a few minutes of police
scanner copy should result in citizen arrests.

Filed Under: citizen, lapd, vigilantes
Companies: citizen


9 Comments
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 * John Roddy: That's what TIFF is for.
 * Samuel Abram: For the longest time, until I found out that the "J" in "JPEG"
   stood for "Joint", I always assumed it stood for "Japanese" as in "Japanese
   Picture Experts Group"
 * I was about in junior high, so you could forgive me for thinking that
 * John Roddy: It's pronounced "gay-peg."
 * BentFranklin: The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger [link]
   https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/nothing-burger.html
 * [article]
   https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
 * Samuel Abram: [article]
   https://news.microsoft.com/features/microsoft-to-acquire-activision-blizzard-to-bring-the-joy-and-community-of-gaming-to-everyone-across-every-device/
 * Microsoft is acquiring Activision. I guess Microsoft is like Disney in their
   imperial acquisitions. Otherwise, Nintendo is like Disney.
 * Timothy Geigner: ......more exclusive non-exclusives coming to a reality near
   you!
 * Samuel Abram: I would say this is the interactive/video-game equivalent of
   Disney buying Fox.
 * It's also strange that the definitions of "Big Tech" don't include Microsoft
   for some reason…
 * It's also wild that Microsoft now owns former Sony (Crash and Spyro) and
   Nintendo (Rare) properties!
 * Timothy Geigner: I'm starting to wonder if we're seeing a "great
   consolidation" moment in the gaming industry, thx in part to the pandemic
 * Samuel Abram: [image]
   https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/265291075252518912/933161907177799721/-5998222515685666198_121.png
 * Cathy Gellis: I just need to say that I love that picture.
 * John Roddy: All right, here's one for ya...
 * How many Microsoft technicians does it take to change a light bulb?
 * ||None. Darkness is now the industry standard.||
 * BentFranklin: IRS Will Soon Require Selfies for Online Access [link]
   https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/01/irs-will-soon-require-selfies-for-online-access/
 * Tell me again how copyright is supposed to spur new creations? [article]
   https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/is-old-music-killing-new-music
 * Samuel Abram: Of course, there are other factors in that, such as more people
   realizing that awards shows are meaningless garbage, and how people's taste
   in music is towards more independent musicians…
 * BentFranklin: NFTs: all DRM no content
 * Mike Masnick: yup: https://twitter.com/mmasnick/sta...
   https://twitter.com/mmasnick/status/1484610812144586753
 * 2 hour and 18 minute rant on the problems with everything in the crypto/nft
   space. i just watched the whole thing. agree with much of it, but not all of
   it. and still think there are a few interesting ideas in the space, though i
   think we'll only get there if the nonsense shakes out. [video]
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g
 * mildconcern: "A crypto enthusiast and butthurt Warlock main." 😂
 * John Roddy: [link]
   https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15946456/198/almanzar-v-kebe/
 * Found a unicorn.
 * One of the rare defamation lawsuits that actually *succeeds.*
 * Samuel Abram: Not to mention for the jury reward of $1.25 million
 * John Roddy: Not that the jury reward is indicative of what the judge
   ultimately approves.
 * Especially given that attorney fees and stuff aren't decided yet.
 * Either way, from what I saw about the case before, this one looked to have
   actual merit.
 * Like, *actual* false statements of fact being presented as truth by people
   who genuinely knew better, but did so anyway for the sole purpose of damaging
   the image of a public figure.
 * Samuel Abram: Like you said, a unicorn
 * and the legal definition of Defamation, so, the plaintiffs should cough it up
 * Cathy Gellis: I find it useful in defending the First Amendment to be able to
   point to exceptions. It's better to be able to argue that it should be hard
   to prevail than that no one should ever be able to prevail.
 * Vidiot: Cookies, FLoC, Topics... I imagine this latest ad-affinity-harvester
   is supposed to better insure privacy, but it sure doesn't feel like it. Best
   moment in this story: learning your job title at Google could be "Privacy
   Sandbox Lead". Kind of like that refrigerator magnet set where you can
   arrange random words to create gibberish phrases... [article]
   https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/25/google-kills-off-floc-replaces-it-with-topics
 * Mike Masnick: I think topics is a big, big deal. Will have a post on it
   shortly. And, fwiw, the privacy sandbox people at google are amazing, and
   spend an awful lot of time fighting back against bad ideas that google does.
   I wish every internet company had that kind of group....
 * Vidiot: An ombudsman function... cool. The TechCrunch story's description of
   Topics seems to suggest that they're assigning my specific browsing to
   meta-categories, which ought to depersonalize that data... maybe not get
   bombarded with ads for a specific Home Depot faucet, but a gentler barrage of
   home improvement or plumbing suggestions. (I'm guessing.) I have to say that
   browsing with no affinity suggestions, like Firefox with all the protections
   enabled, is a pretty sterile experience, and occasionally unhelpful.
 * deadspatula: I mean, I prefer sterile ads to targeted ads that only offer me
   products I already bought/chose not to buy.
 * Vidiot: That would be the "gentler" ads for me... preferable, somehow, to the
   bone-dry, sterile experience of no suggestions whatsoever, which has all the
   charm of typing plain text into a VT-100 terminal. I guess I've been
   well-indoctrinated by our evil overlords.
 * herzigma: I was at Google for 3 years and can confirm. Two reasons I worry
   less about privacy from Google: extreme targeting isn't very profitable for
   them and Googlers are really into privacy.
 * Yaga: Would that actually be SOME Googlers are really into privacy? Just want
   to get a feeling from an ex-Googler if that feeling really is company-wide or
   did you feel that one group or another wasn't as concerned about it.
 * herzigma: Good question. It obviously wasn't every Googler feeling equally.
   And I don't know how to the most senior execs felt. For example, I don't
   think I spent more than 3 minutes talking to Larry and it was only afterwards
   that I realized Sergei was actually trying to run away. I'd say that, on
   average, belief about the importance of personal privacy is substantially
   higher among Google engineers than average and close to what you'd expect to
   see among this group. Probably less important for non-engineering people. I
   have a few examples of where I was trying to launch a product but GTM plans
   were changed at the last minute because of privacy concerns raised at the
   last minute by relatively junior engineers. Privacy was also a frequent topic
   of (personal) conversation on (non-work) internal email lists.
 * Samuel Abram: @Mike Masnick Good ol' fashioned Streisand Effect: [article]
   https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/01/28/maus-sales-surge-after-tennessee-school-district-bans-the-holocaust-graphic-novel/
 * Though I would call this the "Rushdie Effect"
 * Mike Masnick: i just did an interview for the podcast (not next week's but
   the following week's...) with the author of a new book on this history of
   free speech, who points out in the book (and on the podcast) a Roman
   politician from 2 millenia ago who more or less came up with the Streisand
   Effect when his writings were banned back then and noted it would make them
   more desirable.
 * John Roddy: Please tell me that there's some more history regarding a
   particular bit of beach property he might have owned as well.
 * Samuel Abram: I can't wait!
 * Vidiot: That podcast has footnotes -- cf. Streisandius ligitosius
 * Samuel Abram: @Mike Masnick I’d like to hear your take on the Neil Young
   Spotify thing (in the form of a Techdirt post, of course).
 * Mike Masnick: we have a guest post coming on that
 * Samuel Abram: Yes!
 * Timothy Geigner: ........written by Joe Rogan?
 * BentFranklin: Unlike some links I post, I read this one to the end [article]
   https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/30/alexa-factory-whistleblower-i-was-tortured-and-jailed-now-amazon-should-apologise
 * atxstranger: Can't wait to see Karl Bode's take on this one: [article]
   https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/01/att-to-spin-off-warnermedia-in-43-billion-discovery-media-merger.html
 * Mike Masnick: isn't that what was announced last year?
 * atxstranger: yes with the details of the transaction now finalized, which
   involves the word "leakage"
 * KBode: yeah, they're still digging out from the debt of that $200 billion
   megamerger spending spree that resulted in (checks notes) a huge reduction in
   TV subscribers, 50k+ layoffs, and the death of Mad Magazine. leakage indeed!
 * John Roddy: I'm still stuck on single-line DSL.
 * But it's good to know AT&T has plenty of money to throw at all these media
   deals.
 * deadspatula: [article]
   https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/02/facebook-loses-users-for-first-time-ever-market-cap-drops-by-200b/
   And the push for a metaverse owned by facebook as a desperation ploy to
   retain relevance 'theory' gains another piece of clear evidence. I doubt a
   video pivot is going to help, given the way they burned entire websites to
   the ground lying about its last push into video.
 * MSR4: Second life really did not take off, I doubt that the metaverse will as
   well. I could see a mesh of Facebook and augmented reality using a google
   glass type of device. But not pure metaverse using VR headsets.
 * deadspatula: My view is that if i look at predictions of what a connected
   world would be that predates mass adoption of the world wide web, it looked
   only superficially like it looks today. AOL and Compuserve derived
   experiences abounded when those were popular. VR has been sold to us for
   decades, and facebook is trying, top-down, to dictate how that will look, and
   drawing directly from the sci-fi around VR, but because it’s a top down
   dictate, no one can really experiment with what works. The internet thrived
   because it had a wild west period. Almost anything goes, and it allowed
   breakthrough developments. Second life and now meta both face the barrier
   that really, we can only do what meta predicts we will do. Second life had an
   extensive in-game design system, but even there exists limitations within the
   language and apis provided. It’s why meta wants to build it, because then you
   are locked in to what they tell you you can do. They want your work to buy
   in, so you can’t choose to not use the meta verse. And then it’s just the
   inevitable slide into the movie version of IOI selling ad overlays while you
   work until you have a seizure.
 * it’s a gimmick, a desperate attempt to innovate for a company that’s stolen
   all its ideas for a decade. it’s another stolen idea that will fail. but my
   original goal started as a laugh at all the people who keep saying facebook
   is forever, and fell apart once i realized that was too mean spirited.
 * Leigh Beadon: the closest any of these companies could come to "creating the
   metaverse" is if Microsoft open-sourced Minecraft 🙂
 * like apart from vague statement about visions of pervasive
   interconnectedness, there's very little in any of these corporate efforts -
   and even in most of the crypto/web3 visions like decentraland etc. - that
   shows any *actual* movement towards a platform that people can build on and
   extend in the same way they could with core internet technologies
 * and thus not much to distinguish them from just "another online virtual
   world" (not a new thing) but if you took an already-popular virtual world
   engine based around building and customization, that already has a somewhat
   federated network of servers many of which make use of modding capabilities
   to extensively change the game, etc. - and made that *even more open* so
   people could do whatever they wanted with it... well, that *might* actually
   look like an interesting step towards something resembling this vague
   buzzwordy notion of "the metaverse"
 * (not to suggest that would actually happen though since these companies seem
   either not actually truly that interested in "the metaverse" or only
   interested inasmuch as they can have control over its core)
 * John Roddy: A lot of the experimentation that Microsoft was doing with
   hololens looked really cool.
 * Then again, a *lot* of stuff that Microsoft experiments with looks really
   cool.
 * Very little of that coolness remains by the time they figure out how to bring
   it to market.
 * Samuel Abram: Open-sourcing is more difficult than you might think, because
   sometimes the code is built upon proprietary code or tools.
 * Making the source code available ≠ Making open-source
 * deadspatula: I'm curious, what about microsoft's entire history of Embrace,
   Extend, Extinguish makes you think they use third party proprietary licensed
   code they cant control? Anything Mojang might have needed to license for the
   PC edition back in the day, I imagine Microsoft could re-implement on in
   house code, and would just to pump the bottom line. Its why Microsoft wont
   open source Minecraft, that desire for control of their own code. But if
   they'd already gotten to the point of open sourcing Minecraft itself, finding
   a way to open source whatever killer shared code it uses doesn't sound far
   fetched.
 * Samuel Abram: > I'm curious, what about microsoft's entire history of
   Embrace, Extend, Extinguish makes you think they use third party proprietary
   licensed code they cant control? Microsoft has also embraced open-source
   tools and code before; they even offer ways to download Linux. Anyway, good
   points.
 * Leigh Beadon: Well I didn't say it'd be *easy* (I don't imagine "creating the
   metaverse" should be easy!)
 * nor am I really making a real proposal for something i think will happen or
   anything
 * Samuel Abram: Fair enough, @Leigh Beadon.
 * BTW, a _shitload_ (pardon the obscenity) of good entrants in the
   #Gaming-like-it's-1926 game jam, albeit I fail to see how a few of them are
   remixing works from 1926 or sound recordings ere 1923
 * Leigh Beadon: yeah a couple we will look closer at to figure that out but
   agreed, the entries are fantastic!
 * Samuel Abram: There's a game based on Franz Kafka's _The Castle_, and I
   believe it's _not_ in the public domain, because of the precedent set by the
   US Ninth Circuit Court's decision ruling that Bambi's US publication–and not
   its original Austrian Publication–counts towards the year when it enters
   public domain.
 * That being said, I think it would be cruel to reject a game based on a
   technicality such as that.
 * mildconcern: Christ almighty: [article]
   https://truthfreedomhealth.com/
 * herzigma: Donate $100 and get 15 gifts!
 * Mike Masnick: you've discovered my friend, huh
 * mildconcern: I've loved following this guy for years. I don't know why but
   his mere existence is one of the best comedies out there
 * Techdirt did indeed introduce me to him. And then he ran for the Senate and
   took it to an eleven.
 * This came up in the context of the Massachusetts GOP having a meltdown and
   now all its accounts are apparently frozen because of a snit fit by the state
   party treasurer leaving a contentious state committee meeting
 * They continually struggle between their own core being full of the few hard
   core Trump rightists in the state who are very bitter and very small in
   number, and then the other wing of the party that maybe wants to win some
   election someday in MA.
 * And apparently Dr Shiva was too much even for both of these sides.
 * murgatroyd: I hadn't realized Shiva had branched out into "fraudulent
   election auditing" (interpret that as you will). [article]
   https://www.thedailybeast.com/pro-trump-otero-county-in-new-mexico-is-carrying-out-a-wild-audit-of-2020-votes
 * Mike Masnick: Oh yeah. This article is incredible. [article]
   https://www.azmirror.com/2021/10/01/audit-expert-shiva-ayyadurai-didnt-understand-election-procedures-he-made-a-number-of-false-signature-claims/
 * John Roddy: One thing I'm wondering...
 * Does Shiva have a mailing list?
 * Because OF ALL PEOPLE you could expect to have one, surely he would be all in
   on it?
 * lemur: He does not have a mailing list but a MAILING LIST™️.
 * murgatroyd: There are some great quotes in there - ".... if you can call it
   testimony ..." is my personal fave.
 * lemur: Does anyone know where the court documents regarding the current Hertz
   case being talked about in the media are located? Basically, Hertz reported
   the cars they rented out to some customers as "stolen" and some of these
   customers ended up in jail. People want to know how many times that has
   happened but Hertz does not want that data out. I did look for them yesterday
   but did not get very far. In particular, I'm interested in the pleadings
   Hertz made to keep the records secret. I'm expecting that their lawyers
   beclowned themselves by essentially arguing that it would be embarrassing for
   Hertz to have that information out, but I'm willing to be surprised so I'd
   like to read the pleadings for myself. BTW, the judge in the case denied
   Hertz request so the information should get out at some point.
 * The records may be on PACER but it looks like PACER deactivated my account
   because I don't use it enough. 🤦‍♂️ Hmm... I wonder if I can create a new
   account, and let that one expire, and create a new account, rinse and repeat.
   (Play stupid games, win stupid prizes???) IANAL so...

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